Christmas is nearly here. Many of us will soon be celebrating with friends and family and sitting down to big delicious meals on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Big meals usually involve a lot of prep work done in advance, organizing the kitchen to accommodate all the food and giant serving dishes, coordinating the oven schedule, thawing and reheating, and packing leftovers. This provides many opportunities for bacteria and other organisms to grow, travel & contaminate food and makes it an excellent time to talk about food safety. Don't be fooled though: Food safety should be practiced year-round, on a daily basis.
FoodSafety.gov provides a thorough, easy to read, and easy to navigate checklist of food safety tips broken down into four steps: clean, separate, cook & chill.
Here are the basics of food safety but please check out FoodSafety.gov!